I'm obviously happy about the win. However, here were the low points and high points to me.

1. The offense seemed out of sync much of the game. I didn't feel like we were really clicking. Matt Ryan did not have a great game and his two picks nearly cost us the w. The good news is the passing offense should go back to clicking. 2. Our offensive line seemed to do better with the run compared to last year, but I still have no faith we can close games out. I think it will be hard to muster a consistent run game. 3. I know it's his debut, but I was hoping to see Vic Beasley make a real impact. Other than a couple nice plays, I didn't see that. 4. The third quarter defense reminded me very much of part years defense. 5. Weems is not a great returner. Not impressive performance out of him.

The good. 1. The defense swarmed more and tackled better. During the first half it looked great. It has improved markedly. No question. 2. Schofieod looks like a nice free agent signing. He made an instant impact. Durant also looked very solid. 3. I liked what I was from our young running backs. Even with a sub par line, we had just enough of a running game to keep a good Eagles defense honest. We didn't have that last year. 4. Julio Jones looks great, as always. He was the best part of the offense. 5. Other than returning, our special teams was excellent. 6. We did not play a phenomenal game. Yet we beat the eagles. That makes me feel very confident.

Ryan had an off night, and could have easily thrown another pick or two. The offense certainly looked out of sync in the 3rd quarter. The big culprit was obviously the Matt Ryan pick to start the 3rd. Hopefully we will do a better job with the penalties and negative plays so that we're not having to convert 3rd and 15 too often. Perhaps Jake Long will help shore up the offensive line.

The defense was on its heels when the Eagles were playing Eagles football. They were very successful last year, and they have a better QB this year. (if he can stay healthy) The Falcons were able to keep them out of their game for an entire half. And at the end of the game, when the Eagles had to go back to straight football, the Falcons shut them down. We also decisively shut down the Eagles run game. They were able to dink and dunk their way down the field. This is reminiscent of what we saw last year. Hopefully we can identify those issues and come up with a game plan to lock that down. The above said, we are going to have a pretty good defense this year. There was a lot of disruption, and we were getting consistent pressure in the first half with only 4 rushers. I can only see it getting better.

1. Ryan had a similar performance in the last MNF game we had vs. Packers. He nearly threw 4 or so picks in that game, but most people contend that he played well because his box scores stats looked really good thanks to Julio's monster performance.

This is not meant as a diss to Ryan, but he hasn't played particularly well for quite a while with maybe 2 or 3 good games in his past 20 or so. Again at the end of the day, criticism of Ryan has to be tempered to a degree since his bad games are still better than the good games of 50% of the quarterbacks in the league, but still...

Also Ryan has reached the point in his career where his "good" games are measured on an "elite" gauge/spectrum. It's not exactly fair but demz the breaks.

2. Beasley was facing Jason Peters. The funny thing is that this should've been expected all along. He begins the year facing Peters, Tyron Smith, Duane Brown and Trent Williams in 4 of his first 5 NFL games, with the first 3 being the guys that most people name right after Joe Thomas as the best LTs in the game and Williams isn't far behind. It's OK, the people that were expecting Beasley to come in like Kearse or Peppers and rack up huge sack numbers right away were misguided.

Considering his competition Beasley played exceptionally well.

3. Weems return skills had considerably diminished. It's why Chicago cut him last summer because he was so bad during preseason returning that they were like "We're not gonna pay him $2M or whatever just to cover kicks."

I really thought Nick Williams would get the nod there. He isn't a burner but is much more explosive than Weems is at this point.

4. Tempo and Sproles gave us fits in the 2nd half. Jordan Matthews was also a difficult matchup for us in the slot. Agholor was nonexistent (testament to Trufant). The Eagles are very good and you have to hand it to our defense's amazing start as to why we won.

Pound for pound the Eagles are a better, more well-rounded team, and our strong performance ealry on was what got us the victory. When you play better teams you cannot expect to outplay them for all 4 quarters especially when they have the talent they have on both sides of the ball and especially when the No. 1 weapon on offense is dealing with an unknown injury in the 2nd half.

5. Our run defense got a big boost from the Eagles being forced to play from behind. They wound up attempting 52 passes vs 16 runs. This is why you wanna start fast. It takes out 50% of the opposing teams offense. It'll be interesting to see if we can repeat that on the road the next two weeks, when generally teams don't start fast on the road.

Do you think we should give Hardy a chance for returns? On a related note, I was surprised we activated Nick instead of Hardy to be honest. Not sure I understand the logic there, but maybe you guys have the answer.

I think you make an excellent point regarding jumping out early and forcing offenses to throw more than they would like. We need to keep that up, because it will cover up some flaws on this defense and really help it out.

Hardy isn't a good returner. I know he had the big return in the preseason, but that was basically because 2 Ravens defenders collided with each other and he managed to spin out of a tackle and got a great block from Stupar. He essentially ran right into the teeth of the Ravens cover guys and got lucky. He's not fast or explosive. Can he be a functional punt returner in the nFL? Sure. But he's not better than Williams, who has a more speed and showed better vision there.

I expected Williams to be active instead of Hardy because of that reason. But it was surprising to see Williams active but not working on returns. You figured that would be the main reason why you would activate him. But contrary to popular opinion, Keith Armstrong has made a lot of head-scratching decisions in terms of how he deploys his special teams units over the years. It usually leads to good results, so one can't complain about it, but a lot of times there isn't a ton of rhyme or reason to it...at least from an outside perspective.

That is what I meant. If Weems is returning kicks, why not activate Hardy instead of Williams at that point? I hope Keith gives Williams a chance to return this coming week. You make a good (and funny) point regarding Keith doing things sometimes without a clear reason.

Speaking of that, I have not heard any update on Hester's injury, but I assume he likely won't be playing next week.

This is a very rough opening stretch for our Falcons. We played at home against Philly, then going to NY and then to Dallas. The good news from a winning perspective is Dez won't be playing for Dallas, which makes the chances of victory higher. But I figure we will be underdogs against both NY and Dallas. Originally I was hoping for 1-2 after our first three games, so we are already there.